Or, the thoughts of several frustrated intellectuals on Sociology, Gaming, Science, Politics, Science Fiction, Religion, and whatever the hell else strikes their fancy. There is absolutely no reason why you should read this blog. None. Seriously. Go hit your back button. It's up in the upper left-hand corner of your browser... it says "Back."
Don't say we didn't warn you.

The content of this blog is comprised almost entirely of opinions... and not particularly intelligent ones in Drek's case. The opinions contained herein are not those of the blog authors' employers. Total Drek is not responsible for the content of comments.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Lessons from childhood.

Some of you may have seen the trailer for the upcoming movie "The Skeptic." Now, I don't want you to get excited: it isn't a fictional confrontation between James Randi and Uri Gellar.* Instead, it's the tale of one man who doubts the existence of the supernatural and subsequently discovers that his house is... you know... haunted. Check out the trailer for the full effect:

Ah, those silly skeptics! How stupid they are for doubting the existence of things that have never been documented in any reliable way ever! That's just ludicrous! What will they doubt next? Leprechauns? Unicorns? Poor, poor skeptics.

And the odd thing is, this trailer got me thinking: wouldn't it be neat if there were a more realistic depiction of this scenario? Skeptic inherits old house, strange noises/fleeting images occur, he investigates... and discovers a number of drafts and other perfectly natural phenomena that account for the apparitions. Family fixes up house, sells for a nice profit, and lives happily every after. I guess someone might call that scenario boring, though. I mean, really, what show could possibly succeed by presenting an apparently supernatural situation and then revealing that it's all perfectly explainable through natural means? Has there ever been a movie or TV show that tried such an obvious failure?

And that's when it hit me: "presenting an apparently supernatural situation and then revealing that it's all perfectly explainable through natural means" is a description of every episode of Scooby-Doo ever made:

1 Comments:

The premise: some years after the TV series finishes, Mystery Inc has split up, but a few of them start feeling a little bit depressed that they never actually found a real ghost. They re-unite as kind of a last hurrah, to [try to] find something actually supernatural.